A Prince George man was sentenced Tuesday to eight months in jail for running a large-scale marijuana growing operation after a provincial court judge decided a conditional sentence was too lenient.
Although Robert Raymond Frazer, 49, has no previous criminal record, he took responsibility for his actions and is an otherwise a contributing member of society, judge Elizabeth Bayliff. She said she was obligated to put an emphasis on denunciation and deterrence in reaching her decision.
Running a grow-op "represents a very deliberate choice to step outside the law" and requires a "high degree of planning," Bayliff said.
Although defence counsel had been seeking a conditional sentence, in which Frazer could serve the term at home and still go to work, Crown prosecution had argued for 15 months in jail, significantly stiffer than what he received.
Bayliff also decided there was no need for Frazer to serve probation once his jail term was completed.
Frazer was arrested in June 2011 before a mandatory minimum of two years for growing more than 500 plants came into effect.
He was apprehended at a large property he had been renting on Christina Road in Pilot Mountain after a B.C. Hydro officer reported a suspected theft of electricity to RCMP.
Cooperating with police after they obtained a search warrant, Frazer gave police a key to a large shop building where they found 1,039 marijuana plants and four kilograms of dried and processed marijuana.
He told RCMP he was trying to earn some extra money to pay off a debt to Canada Revenue Agency and had been running the grow-op for six or seven months.
Police determined the operation was capable of yielding three to four crops per year, enough to generate $388,000 to $502,000 in revenue. But as of his arrest, Frazer had not made any money as he had lost his first crop to an insect infestation.
It was clear Frazer was "not part of a larger organization, that he was struggling to learn the business and make the contacts necessary to sell the product," Bayliff found.
Bayliff also found that Frazer was the principal operator but even if she concluded he was only a caretaker, she said it would not have made a difference because he still would have been playing a central role in running the grow-op.
